


like cherry blossoms

by yukizakii



Category: Hakuouki
Genre: Gifts, Introspection, baka trio, chizuru is honestly a great protag and i will fight anyone who says otherwise, just kinda wholesome, takes place in like the middle-ish before all the shiz goes down
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-24
Updated: 2020-09-24
Packaged: 2021-03-08 02:14:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,125
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26628118
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yukizakii/pseuds/yukizakii
Summary: The brown eyes that stare back at her in the mirror are familiar, but the skin underneath is creased and purple with dark circles. Her lips are pale and chapped, her skin dry and tan from the sun. Chizuru recognizes this girl, but at the same time she does not.Chizuru comes to face with her femininity after years of hiding as a man in the Shinsengumi.
Comments: 3
Kudos: 31





	like cherry blossoms

A hard day's work.

She looks at herself in the little mirror on the desk after she lights the oil lamp, the flames illuminating the small room with a warm glow. The mirror is a new addition to the sparse furnishings of her room, courtesy of a gift she had received this morning from the ever-so-kind Kondou, coming back from a trip to Osaka— _How could I let a young lady live like this? Surely you must want a mirror and a comb. I insist you take this gift, for all that you have done for us_. She has grown used to seeing herself only in the reflection in the well in the courtyard to tie up her hair in the mornings (the mirror she had packed from Edo had broken during her travels to Kyoto) but tonight she kneels and holds up the beautiful wooden mirror up to scrutinize her appearance in detail for years.

Chizuru is shocked to see someone that she barely recognizes staring back at her.

The brown eyes that stare back at her are familiar, but the skin underneath is creased and purple with dark circles. Her lips are pale and chapped, her skin dry and tan from the sun. There is a flush of ruddy pink on her nose and cheeks, courtesy of a bad sunburn she received a few days ago on an extended patrol. Chizuru knows that she has lost some weight after years of running around Kyoto and the compound with the Shinsengumi, and she is startled to see that it reflects in her face as well; her youthful rounded cheeks have sharpened around the edges. She looks…older, but not in a way that she expected.

She peeks at her reflection one way, tilts her head another to examine her appearance from a different angle. She parts her bangs to the left, right, and then raises her arms to work apart the thick knot in the heavyweight cord to let down her hair. Chizuru shakes her head to loosen the hair, running her fingers through the stiff locks. The humidity of the summer heat has made it frizz, and it curls in wayward directions at the tips. Normally silky straight in the drier heat of Edo, her hair seems to have grown a mind of its own in the Kyoto summer. Her hair reeks of sweat after spending the day patrolling the town in the blazing heat to ask about her father, but there is no time to go to the public bathhouse until tomorrow afternoon, when she can slip away after morning chores and return in time for dinner preparations.

Chizuru looks at her reflection again with her hair down, and frowns. She looks a bit more like a woman with her hair down, but the frizz and the length of her bangs seem to completely swamp her feminine features. Kondou’s gift had been thoughtful, but every glance she takes in the mirror alights further disappointment in her heart. Chizuru recognizes this girl, but at the same time she does not.

Everything she does on a tight schedule. She is busy, she tells herself. She has a purpose and things to do here, and the daily rush and routine should be enough to keep her content. And it does, truly; Chizuru has always been at her happiest when she has things to do. Although her heart hurts for the years it has been since she has seen her father, her days are filled with warmth and fulfillment helping out around the headquarters and laughing with the men of the Shinsengumi. She has adventured out and around Japan more than any other girl her age likely would have, and she cherishes the memories and knowledge she has gained with her time at the Shinsengumi.

But for a moment, Chizuru self-consciously brings her fingers up to her dry lips, her fingers catching on the peeling skin. She pretends that her finger is a brush sweeping red pigment, as if she were a beautiful geisha like the women in Shimabara. She thinks of that beautiful young woman she met on the streets of Kyoto. Nagumo Kaoru, who had had a face eerily similar to hers, but with a beautiful mature elegance that even in retrospect sparks a twinge of jealousy deep within Chizuru’s heart.

She closes her eyes and imagines her life back in Edo—yes, when she was simply Yukimura Chizuru, beloved daughter of the revered Western doctor Yukimura Kodo. Yukimura Chizuru, who wore her hair twisted up with fashionable hairpins and dressed in beautiful kimonos that her loving father had bought for her. She remembers the Yukimura Chizuru who had perfect porcelain pale skin that attracted the fishmonger’s son, Souichirou, into begging her to take her out to a local teahouse for a meal (she had cowered in the back while her father reduced him into a puppy with its tail between its legs). When she allows her mind to wander and melt the real world away, the vision of the carefree, just-a-daughter-of-a-doctor Chizuru is almost real.

But who is she now? She is now Yukimura Chizuru, daughter of Yukimura Kodo, a Western doctor who experimented on the Shinsengumi with a horrible serum that has turned men into monsters. She is Yukimura Chizuru, a girl with no swordskill masquerading as a boy in the Shinsengumi. She is Yukimura Chizuru, a demon with a target on her back, but with no real value to her other than her supposed pure bloodline.

She sighs and drops her hand from her face, absentmindedly rubbing her fingers together. The frictional force sets pain alight again in a burn she received while cooking dinner (a particularly nasty one from an open flame, although it is already well on its way to healing), and Chizuru lets out a gasp before she drops her hands to her sides. She silently chides herself; she has no time for something like personal vanity. She is masquerading as a boy, after all. It is only natural that she should lose some of her feminine characteristics, and maybe for the better, she tells herself. She has already drawn a fair number of questions and suspicions, and she is certain it has caused more of an inconvenience to the Shinsengumi than anything. Her hair goes back up and she stands up and moves towards the door, slipping her feet into her sandals. _The Shinsengumi is protecting me and has risked their lives to help me. I need to do what I can to be of use to them._

Business as usual. She leaves her room to fetch burn ointment for her hand, and stops in the kitchen to brew two cups of tea, one each for Hijikata and Kondou; she had seen the two men head into the common room earlier to discuss business, and she knows that they will appreciate the warm refreshment. She pads around the compound to the common room to deliver the drinks to them, the steam from the cups warming her cheeks. Upon her arrival, Kondou is grateful and lauds her kind nature; Hijikata simply chides her for staying up so late and tells her to _Go to bed, Yukimura_ , his piercing violet eyes giving no room for excuses. Chizuru has no choice but to agree, and exits the room as their low voices resume talks about the Shinsengumi’s recent activities.

The moon has moved across the sky by the time Chizuru finishes, and she returns to her room just as the heat from the day shifts into a cooler chill. She hurriedly strips off her clothes in exchange for a sleeping yukata; she must get up early tomorrow to help Saitou with breakfast, and it will be an embarrassment if she oversleeps. Saitou is stricter than anyone on punctuality, and she knows that being even a few moments late will earn her a cold stare. The sooner she is able to fall asleep, the better. Exhaustion from the day’s nonstop activities soon sets into her bones as she lays down in the futon, and the world turns to black.

It is the sunlight drifting through the thin paper walls that pulls her consciousness to the surface. Chizuru jolts up, adrenaline shooting through her veins as she remembers that she is on breakfast duty. She rushes through getting dressed and hurriedly combs her hair with her fingers, ignoring the mirror and wooden comb on her desk. Her fingers quickly twist the cord around her hair as she rushes to the door, her thoughts racing about all of the side dishes she would need to prepare. Chizuru tightens her hair and then slides open the screen door, ready to start into a jog to the kitchen—and stops.

A small bouquet of wildflowers lay tucked just in front of the sliding door to her room, the stems tied together with a neatly knotted loop of grass. Despite her earlier rush, Chizuru cannot help but stop to kneel down and look closer at the bouquet; the blooms are a perfect capture of a Kyoto summer, and she cannot help but smile at the simple beauty of the flowers. Although stunning, confusion quickly takes over her initial excitement and joy. This was after all, the headquarters of the Shinsengumi—what soldier would be sending or receiving flowers? Chizuru picks up the bouquet, and notices a scrap of paper tucked under the loop of grass; when she pulls the paper free, she widens her eyes when she realizes her name is written in brushstroke on the outside. Fingers shaking, Chizuru unfolds the sheet of paper, and her breath catches as she reads the short note.

_A lady always deserves flowers._

Throughout breakfast, Chizuru catches Heisuke and Nagakura constantly looking in her direction as if to try and read her expression, and Harada is far chattier to her than normal. She asks about their morning to make conversation, and Heisuke is quick to complain about the morning heat by the riverbank during his patrols. When Inoue curiously interjects to ask why Heisuke walked to as far as the riverbank for his patrol, Heisuke stumbles and prevaricates him, allowing Nagakura to hurriedly jump in on the conversation to ramble about taking early morning walks to clear the head for the day. Chizuru giggles at this rambunctious display and conversation; she has a strong feeling of who the culprits are, she thinks.

When she returns to her room, Chizuru sits by the desk again and pulls the bouquet of flowers out from behind a stack of books. A pity that she cannot display them in a vase of water; they are already starting to droop in the heat, and the petals of the beautiful wildflowers look as if they will crisp up in any minute. But to Chizuru, they are just as beautiful as they were a few hours ago, and her heart feels even warmer than the Kyoto summer as she gazes at the flowers.

Chizuru stretches her hand to the other side of the desk to where the wooden mirror lays, and she holds it up to herself once more. She pulls down her hair, combs it through, and ties it back up again. She surveys her reflection: dark eyes, sunburned cheeks, hair that is already curling up from the humidity. The sunburn well on its way to healing on her nose, but there is still the slightest flush of redness, and sweat from the heat of the day is already sticking her bangs to her forehead. But despite all of these little nuances and flaws, she does not hate what she sees.

Like the bouquet she received from the men of the Shinsengumi today, she thinks, beauty is fleeting. But like the cherry blossoms in Kyoto that she has come to adore every spring, it changes but does not go away; even in winter, the trees have their own unique elegance without their blossoms. The woman she sees is no dignified geisha, but she is a woman who has earned her place in the Shinsengumi. Chizuru is not the same kind of girl that she was in Edo, but she feels no disturbance in her heart today as she gazes at her reflection.

She is Yukimura Chizuru, daughter of Yukimura Kodo, and she knows that she will need to bear the weight of her father’s sins. But she is also Yukimura Chizuru of the Shinsengumi, an attendant and page to the commanders, and an assistant medic. Although she cannot fight like a swordsman, nor is she as elegantly dressed as a normal woman her age, Chizuru still holds her head up high as she smiles at the girl staring back at her.

Today, she feels beautiful.

**Author's Note:**

> Chizuru is honestly a great character, imo, and you really get to learn more about her thoughts and how she feels when you play the game. At the start of it all, she's a 16 year old girl, and suddenly over time she really grows up to be this young woman that has done so much and affected the lives of so many. ya so like fight me if you don't like her, I'll bite :) 
> 
> With that said, she is a girl at heart, and that comes out whenever she sees Kimigiku/Kaoru and talks with Sen, so I've always wanted to write a bit about what she might feel living her life disguised as a man for years while the rest of the girls her age live "normally" so to speak. Honestly this is still a little rough around the edges but it's the best I can do for now, I've stared at this way too long.


End file.
